The director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Steve McCraw, admitted this Friday that the police made key errors when responding to the shooting in the city of Uvalde, where 21 people died, including 19 child , at Robb Elementary School.
Police officials did not act sooner to arrest the gunman of 18 years identified as Salvador Ramos, because a supervising officer of the place wanted to wait for reinforcements. When a specialized team of officers arrived and entered the school, they had to find the janitor’s keys to open the locked classroom doors, and more than an hour had passed since the shooter arrived at the school, McCraw said.
“Of course it wasn’t the right decision,” admitted McCraw. “It was the wrong decision. When it comes to active shooter, you don’t have to wait for tactical gear, plain and simple,” the Texas Tribune reviewed.
Regarding the details of the shooting, McCraw revealed that the armed man entered the school for a back door that five minutes earlier had been opened by a teacher. He further detailed harrowing calls to 911 from teachers and students trapped inside with the gunman, including one made an hour after the shooter entered the school. , when a student called asking the operator to send the police immediately.
The first call received by the Uvalde police was around 03: 20 Tuesday am, when the gunman’s grandmother called 911 to report that her grandson shot her in the face at her home, which is two minutes from Robb Elementary.
The shooter then fled in his grandmother’s truck, crashing it into a ditch near the school at 11: 28 am, and I was carrying 58 chargers and 1,657 rounds of ammunition, McCraw added.
Salvador Ramos shot two bystanders on the street. He then went to the school, where he shot into the building from the outside before entering the 11: 33 am at the back door.
Upon entering, the gunman entered a couple of connected rooms, the 100 and 112, where he killed the 19 children and two teachers, and injured 17. In the tragic seconds, subject fired more than 100 rounds, and 186 rounds from the time he hit his grandmother’s vehicle to the time he was killed, McCraw said.
The officers quickly arrived at the school and entered two minutes after the gunman. However, they backed off after the young man shot him and wounded two officers. Although they attempted to negotiate with the shooter, the subject “did not respond”.
The on-scene commander treated the situation as a “locked suspect” case, and thought the children were no longer at risk , something McCraw called a “mistake.” He added the official that at one point there were up to 19 officers in the corridor outside the classrooms where the shooter locked up students and teachers.
In the Within an hour that it took for the police to enter the classroom and kill the gunman, calls to 911 from classrooms increased. The first was given at 12: 11 pm, and another, from the living room 112 at 12: 16 pm The student told the operator of the 911 that there were eight or nine students still alive in the classrooms.
During the controversial press conference, McCraw looked visibly unsettled and choked near the end, the Texas Tribune noted.